The Mundakoupanishad : Post-29. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, May 08,  2023. 06:20.

Chapter-2, Section-2.

Mantram-1. (Pointers to the nature of Brahmam and the advice how to know it.)

POST-29.

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Mantram-1. (Pointers to the nature of Brahmam and the advice how to know it.) :

avih sannihitam guhacaram nama 

mahat padam atraitat samarpitam, 

ejat pranan nimiac ca yad etat janatha sad asad 

varenyam param vijnanad yad varistham prajanam (2.2.1). 

Manifest outside is this very thing that is the deepest source of our aspirations. Verily, in front of our eyes is manifest that very thing which is otherwise inconceivable. The deepest within is also there as the perceivable form before the senses. It is deepest in the heart, no doubt, but it is also capable of appearing before our very eyes as the thing that we see. This Brahman is the great manifested support of all beings. It is the cause of all our experiences. It is very close to us, nearer than our neck, yet it is inside in the cavity of the heart. Everything that breathes, everything that is alive, all beings whether moving or not moving, anything that winks, all these are rooted in this one single Being as spokes are fixed in the hub of a wheel. It is the cause of both the gross and the subtle. It is the most adorable of all beings.

How do you adore Brahman as the most lovable of all beings, the dearest of objects? Varenyam: Varenya is the adorable. It is adorable because it is great and grand, and adorable because it is lovable and dear. It has two aesthetic characteristics, sublimity and beauty, and both are to be seen in God. This is the great Brahman tattva, the Atma tattva.

Might and attraction, both qualities are in God. Very few things combine these characteristics. There is great strength in a bulldozer; it can crush us if we go near it, but it has no beauty. It does not attract us, and we do not want to go on looking at it. It has a great force, a crushing force, a great power, but no beauty. But certain beautiful things have no power, such as a flower in the garden. A rose, a jasmine, a lotus are very beautiful, but they are not strong and powerful like an elephant. God is power and beauty combined.

In the Kenopanishad, the student asks the Guru, “How do we adore Brahman?” We should adore Brahman as lovable. Actually, the mind will not concentrate on God unless He is beautiful, attractive and lovable. If He terrible and fearsome, the mind will not concentrate on Him. We cannot work by fear; we can work only by love. This applies not only to factories and offices, but also to the work called meditation in the spiritual field. God cannot threaten us so that we may worship Him. God can only attract us.

These are examples and illustrations which defy logical considerations and mathematical calculations. Love is not logic and it is not mathematics, but it is something more than that. It is more precise than mathematics and more exact than any kind of calculation that we can think of, and greater than logic. Logic and mathematics are the greatest of sciences, so to say, but love is a greater science; and in the spiritual field especially, it is this that acts. The love of God, called mumukshutva, is the source of the success of the student in this field of yoga.

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Next
Mantram-2 ( Instructions on conemplation on Brahmam )

Yad arcimad yad anubhyo'nu ca, 

yasmin loka nihita lokinas ca, 

tad etad aksharam brahma sa pranas tad u van manah, 

tad etat satyam, tad amrtam, tad veddhavyam, saumya, viddhi (2.2.2) : 

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To be continued

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